F 74 
.58 S5 

Copy 1 




j i-t 



Book , S ^ vS b 



PUBLIC SPIRIT 


AND 


MOBS. 


TWO SERMONS DELIVERED AT SPRINGFIELD, MASS., ON SUNDAY, 


FEBRUARY 23, 1851, AFTER THE THOMPSON RIOT. 


# 


BY 

1 


GEORGE F. SIMMONS, 


PASTOR OP THE THIRD CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETV. 


SPRINGFIELD: 


MERRIAM, CHAPIN, & CO. 


BOSTON : 


WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS. 


1851. 



i 



PUBLIC SPIRIT 



AND 



MOBS. 



TWO SERMONS DELIVERED AT SPRINGFIELD, MASS., ON SUNDAY, 
FEBRUARY 23, 1351, AFTER THE THOMPSON RIOT. 



BY 



GEORGE F. SIMMONS, 

PAiiTOU OF THE THIRD CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY. 



SPRINGFIELD: 
MERRIAM, CIIAPIN, & CO. 

BOSTON: 

WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS. 

1851. 






There are some words in these discourses which I would change 
or omit ; but to guard against misconstruction, I have, on the ad- 
vice of friends, had them printed verbally, without alteration, in- 
serting, in one place, some explanatory w^ords in parenthesis. — 
They are very poor attempts in a very great cause. 



'0^ 



CAI^I bridge: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



SERMON I. 



PUBLIC SPIRIT. 



And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and 

WEPT OVER IT, SAYING, If THOU HADST KNOWN, EVEN THOU, 
AT LEAST IN THIS THY DAY, THE THINGS WHICH BELONG UN- 
TO THY PEACE ! But now they are hid from THINE EYES. 

— Luke xix. 41, 42. 

I INTENDED this moming to preach with reference 
to the late disturbances among us ; but finding that 
there had unavoidably entered into my discourse 
much that was civic and municipal, and that it was 
a very painful and troublesome subject, I concluded 
to defer it to the afternoon, and to prepare our minds 
for that duty by something in which we could have 
greater religious enjoyment and repose. I propose 
therefore to you the text, on which I shall first have 
something to say of the person, of his act, and of the 
reason for it. 

Who is it that breaks out into this flood of 
tears, as, arriving at the summit of the Mount of 



Olives, he looks down on the doomed city of Jerusa- 
lem? It is Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, 
the healer of the sick, the teacher of truth, the soon- 
to-be-crucified, the Saviour of the world, whom na- 
tions now^ honor, and not a few obey ; — a man 
whom we conceive in the dignity of a great office, 
with the serenity of heaven on his face and the tran- 
quillity of God in his demeanor, the "Wonderful, the 
Counsellor, the Prince of Peace. He had labored 
for the people's good, and sought it with a single 
aim. He had declared the truth of God which alone 
could save it, and he was prepared to offer up him- 
self in its behalf. The Almighty Father was in him, 
in his heart ; he lived consciously in the surrounding 
presence of the Father ; those counsels which de- 
creed the salvation of the world in him, were open to 
his mind as the day ; and yet there was that patriot 
feeling in his heart which could not be removed by 
considerations of the world's advantage, but when he 
saw the holy city on the ruins of which his salvation 
was to triumph, — the city of David, which a series of 
prophets had loved even while it abused them, — when 
he looked upon those towers which were to be laid 
low, and that deluded population which thronged, 
with inward and with outward steps, the gates, to 
which his unheeded word of tenderness had been so 
often spoken, — the channels of grief were broken up, 
and tears of human sympathy streamed from those 
overladen eyes, in which divine serenity was wont 
habitually to repose. His weeping was not the 
weeping of a sentimentalist, nor the weeping of a 
sinner. It was the weeping of a teacher, and a pa- 
triot, at the prospective woes of a community of 



which he formed a living part, and whose disease he 
could no longer hope to heal. 

If his grief had been over a losing side, with which 
he had been defeated, — if it had been grief that he 
was not honored, or contrition that he had not done 
his part, — if it had been, finally, sensibility at hav- 
ing been insulted, and terror at being about to be ex- 
ecuted, — it might have been touching, but it would 
not have had the character it has. For this was not 
a personal, but a common sorrow, and though his 
own blood was soon to seal his prophecy, he was 
now moved by the general woe, and not by his own. 

What, then, more specifically was the subject of 
the Saviour's tears ? 

It was that the city he loved was going to ruin, 
through intestine disorders, in consequence of the 
immoralities of the people, and for want in them of 
that faith of God which gives strength to every com- 
munity, as it gives dignity to every individual. 

For you are all aware of the intimate connection 
there was between the unruly obstinacy of inhabit- 
ants of Jerusalem, — w^hich, having its root in a per- 
verse faith and fanatical theories of society, broke 
out in perpetual excesses, — and the destruction of 
the city by a Roman army. It was only an instance 
of those frequent retributions which, though naturally 
resulting from actions, fall upon people wholly un- 
awares to them, because they are lost in dreams of 
different consequences of their conduct from what 
infinite justice ordains. The Jewish Sicarii had a 
righteousness of their own. The assassins had a 
code of laws, and prescribed measures to the citizens. 
1* 



6 

The guidance of the people was given up to that 
class of men called in the Old Testament " the sons 
of Belial " ; and the consequence was this memora- 
ble one, not that enemies subdued the brave and re- 
sisting city, but that they devoured themselves, and 
exhibited within the walls first a hell upon earth, be- 
fore the towers were laid low, and " the abomination 
of desolation " possessed the place, and scattered the 
small remnant of the people to the four winds of 
heaven, to be thenceforth, as dwellers in strange cit- 
ies, as outcasts and wanderers on the earth, monu- 
ments of the Divine vengeance to all the inhabitants 
of the world for ever. 

But this is but a picture in large of what is often 
transpiring. It is a great church picture of what we 
have among ourselves in miniature. But men who 
are blind can no more see themselves in a mirror, 
than they can see the path of justice and safety to 
walk in. A man blind to the truth is blind also to 
himself. This is a universal rule. 

The real cause of the ruin of the Jews was, that 
they lost their religion. They had no longer that 
practical guide of life, that svp^'eme guide of life. 
And consequently the popular character became de- 
graded, violent, and headstrong; and not justice, but 
will, was the rule of civil action. Jesus Christ saw 
this, not merely in its results, but in its sources ; and 
it was at the sources that he labored to correct the 
popular heart. Men sometimes suppose that that 
which concerns people's faith is not practical. But 
it is more profoundly practical than all things else, 
inasmuch as the whole of life flows out of it. The 



Jewish people was diseased in its faith, in its relig- 
ious character. That was the fatal fountain of all 
and of infinite evil. And hence Jesus labored to.re- 
store to them what they had lost, to quicken by a 
new and fresh belief in God all the generous in- 
stincts of the soulj and to form characters which 
should endure the trials of terrible times. And now, 
having labored in vain, having reclaimed only a few 
individuals out of a multitude of the guilty, a few 
atoms out of the sea of perdition, — having proved 
that it was useless for the daughter of Zion that he 
should live, he prepared, for it and for all mankind, 
to die ; and looking upon the city in this temper and 
with this despair, he wept over it, and exclaimed, 
" O that thou hadst known, even in this thy day, 
the things that belong to thy peace ! But they are 
hid from thine eyesP This is Jesus the Saviour of 
the world. It is Jesus the Son of God, anointed 
with great spiritual power. But it is also the citizen 
of Nazareth, the lover of his Hebrew fathers' land. 
And it is no disgrace to religion to unite with it the 
love of one's residence, and to blend the patriot and 
the Christian all in one. 

Yet it is an instance of how personal and public 
feeling may coincide in a just man's heart, that the 
greatest curse to fall on that city over which he 
mourned was his own death, their rejection and 
murder of the Son of God. If his heart, then, was 
resting on that crucifixion, it was not a merely indi- 
vidual suffering; for the Son of God was excluded 
from their souls when the Son of Man was slausfh- 
tered. The hope of their nation died with him. He 



8 

was so perfectly identified with the true good of Zi- 
on, that with him it ended for ever ; and so his cause 
of tears, so far as it naturally may have had mingled 
in it reference to his crucifixion, included in it ex- 
tinction of hope of a revived faith in Israel. Until 
his death, Jesus lived for his own country. But after 
he had risen, his country had no more share in him. 
He was then the Saviour of the world. The oppor- 
tunity for conversion to the Jews was passed. The 
doom had been written in the book of God, that 
mankind was to advance over the dead body of the 
daughter of Zion ; and only a few exiles of her chil- 
dren enjoy the brightness of the coming day. So the 
day was now approaching, when the heart of Jesus 
was to be separated from his race for ever. The ten- 
der bond was softly broken, and his love went out in 
tears. We see the citizen gradually expiring within 
him ; and from his pahis and mortifications and lam- 
entations there rose the citizen of the universe. 
This inward death and resurrection was in truth 
completed only in the last sacrifice, was simultane- 
ous, therefore, with the death and resurrection of his 
body. And I may add, that, by a faint resem- 
blance, it is through a similar pain that every man 
passes who survives his pride in the land of his birth. 
Love of country is a strong and universal instinct ; 
and it is carried by most generous natures, in spite 
of other principles that contend with it, to the dying 
hour. But it is ever to be held in subjection to mor- 
al truth, and should not blind the mind to the will of 
God, and to those ties which connect people of all 
nations of the earth. 



9 

11. From this scene of Christ's weeping on the 
Mount of Olives, I would deduce the reflection, that, 
in order, so to speak, to earn the right of mourning 
the lapses of the community, we must first, as he 
did, labor for its good. We ought to feel bound to 
labor for the country, in the way of raising its char- 
acter and purifying its manners. That is a great 
cause, in which we all, as citizens, are banded to- 
gether. The character of the community is our com- 
mon fund. Its reputation is our common pride. Its 
hopes are common to us all. And we and our chil- 
dren share in the soul which belongs to the mass. 
We are, as it were, members of one body, limbs, far 
more than we imagine, of a living organism. And 
this is proved by the tears with which a person of 
heavenly connections, like Jesus, broke the ties by 
which his heart was bound to his people. So we 
cannot separate ourselves. Henceforth unto death 
we are members of a living society; and all its in- 
terests are ours. And in the particular country in 
which our lot is cast, we are to labor, as for life, for 
the improvement of character, for the melioration of 
manners, and for bettering the condition of the peo- 
ple. This is the great object in pursuit of which all 
are one, and on which all depends. The public 
peace, the public morals, the public manners, the pub- 
lic government, the public instruction, — those great 
concerns of every one should be the diligent study 
of the good. So it was with Jesus. These were his 
earnest aim and loving endeavor, his sole work, so 
far as he was limited to Israel. And he only extend- 
ed the same spirit when he disseminated his relig- 



10 

ion abroad. So he cried, " Woe unto thee, Caperna- 
um ! " and " Woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! " with the 
sad tone of an injured and forsaken friend, as the 
virtuous bridegroom would lament for his wandered 
bride, — and "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that 
stonest the prophets," as if the spirit which had 
guided the nation was singing its dirge over the 
falling city. 

2. But another lesson we are to learn from Jesus 
and the Jews is, that that which is at the bottom of 
the character of a community is its faith, and that 
we are therefore to aim to improve it by imparting 
to it the force and energy of religion. It is not by 
its policy that a people advances ; it is by its faith. 
That spring of all great endeavor, that secret, in- 
most spring of all good endeavor of whatever kind, 
that spring where are the head-waters of all prin- 
ciple, of all morals, of all mutual respect, and all 
rights, — the faith of a people, its religion, its con- 
stant motives, its great rule of conduct, its supreme 
law, its ultimate standard, its great belief, its hope in 
death, its undying trust, — this is the fountain which 
we are to guard, and clear, and deepen, and lay with 
the smooth, white stones of good institutions, in or- 
der that the public character may be pure and whole- 
some. For where the faith of a people slackens, the 
character of a people declines ; and where it is pol- 
luted, the character becomes corrupt ; and where it 
dries up, the public character is dead. Therefore it 
is, that the institutions of religion are to be jealously 
guarded, and its appointed days be kept sacred to its 
uses, and the truth be perpetually preached. And 



11 

when, instead of truth, we find practical error pro- 
claimed by ministers of religion, and accepted by the 
people as holy food, and the servant of God dis- 
penses to a congregation their prejudices, instead of 
the great verities which control and correct them, it 
is a dangerous symptom, and the public body is sick. 
But when we see that it is singly from that one foun- 
tain of its faith that the weal of a community can at 
all flow, how can we be grateful enough to those 
men, who, though not bound to it by their office, la- 
bor to disseminate bv church instrumentalities, and 
on familiar occasions, and by means which public 
spirit, blessed charity, invents, the truths of the un- 
corrupted glad tidings of salvation ? 

You will remember, that this was the way that 
not only Christ, but the Apostles, labored. Into 
whatever place they went, they had but one object, 
to reinvigorate the faith. And this is the work that 
the Gospel has everywhere done. 

3. But many men are not able to exercise any 
large influence in this respect. A righteous example 
is always much. But they would hold it presump- 
tuous to attempt to improve men in their religion. 
There are, then, some of those applications of religion, 
which are commonly called practical^ because they 
are immediate, in which all men can act. All men 
can labor to add to the stock of honesty in the com- 
munity. All men can guard the public peace. All 
men can labor after truth ayid simplicity of manners 
in their walk and circle. And in doing so, they, un- 
der the impulse of the common faith, are tilling some 
of the chief fruits and productions of it. So, there- 



12 

fore, my third reflection is, that we are to aim at the 
good of the community not by this direct labor in 
the concerns of its faith alone. We occupy a posi- 
tion less central, less radical., than that of Christ and 
the Apostles. They were planting ; but we are wa- 
tering. Much of our labor is rightly confined to the 
surface. We would not disturb the roots of such a 
plant as that which God has planted. We add to 
its fruitfulness and strength by comparatively super- 
ficial tillage. General instruction, social urbanity, 
alms-giving, the public peace, and maintaining of 
law, are the means by which it is the will of God 
that we should enter into the Apostles' labors, and by 
light service reap the fruit of mighty endeavors. 
And all these things acquire a dignity under Chris- 
tianity, which they could not have under a heathen 
dispensation, inasmuch as they are means to the 
growth of that plant of God, on which all do feed. 
It is in fact a clearing of the fountain of the public 
weal, or if not of the fountain, of the channel of the 
stream in the lower parts of its course. And it is 
only, my friends, and fellow-citizens, and fellow-Chris- 
tians, by perpetual vigilance, and the most untiring 
labor, under the generous impulses of public spirit, 
that we can secure those blessings which our devout 
fathers fondly hoped we should enjoy, but which the 
inroads of the marauding spirit of ungodliness may 
snatch from us before we have sat down to taste 
them. 

Never, I trust, shall we be called to weep, like 
Jesus, at foresight of one of those great national 
wrecks, which form epochs on the rolling tide of 



13 

time. But many a deep sigh may we bring from 
our wounded and desponding hearts, as we see the 
hope of society frustrated, or the form and comeli- 
ness of our civic mother stained and maTred by sin. 
But let every Christian be up and doing ; that he 
may earn the right to mourn, if mourn he must, by 
strenuous exertions for the good and safety of the 
whole united community. 



SERMON II, 
MOBS. 



I HOPE to be listened to, in what I shall now have 
to say, with unusual candor. My studies were bro- 
ken in upon by the note of riot ; and my mind has 
been tossed, through the entire week, with solicitude, 
lest I should fail, on one side or the other, of my du- 
ty. On the one side, I would not be a coward ; and 
on the other, I would not be an intruder. It is well 
known that I have a degree of sympathy with the 
Abolitionists. But I do not know that that is a 
crime. In another place it ivas so considered, by 
the- multitude who only heard of it abroad. But 
here, I trust, it is not reckoned a crime to share the 
opinions of Channing, of Franklin, and of Wilber- 
force. 

In my remarks now, I wish not to be thought to 
insinuate any thing which I do not say. Nothing 
can be farther from my intention, than to charge any 



15 

of you with taking part in the late affair. But I fear 
that some of us were incautiously betrayed into acts 
and speeches, which tended to increase the excite- 
ment. Such a thing is not to be confounded with 
intentional breach of the peace. I myself, on the 
other hand, might, in advocating the rights of the 
fugitive to liberty, unthinkingly let fall words which 
would tend to encourage a mob to free him. But I 
should consider myself hardly dealt with, to be 
charged with the guilt of insurrectionary conduct. 

I understand that the fountain of bitterness at this 
time was not in the bosom of the Church ; that, 
though our friends of the Antislavery cause are apt 
to pour forth on the Church the vials of their indigna- 
tion, and sometimes to call its servants any thing but 
righteous prophets, it was not from the sanctuary, or 
those who love it, that the disturbance of the peace 
proceeded. If there were members of this Church 
compromised, I would not defend them. But I nei- 
ther insinuate, nor do I believe, that such was the 
case. And I speak the more cheerfully and freely, 
because I expect to receive the assent of you all, in 
nearly every word that I shall say. My object is, 
together with you, to unfold this business until we 
see into its true nature. With that view, I have ta- 
ken for a text the 34th verse of that chapter of the 
Acts from which I have read to you the portion 
which most concerns us. 



16 



And when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one 

VOICE, FOR ABOUT THE SPACE OF TWO HOURS, CRIED OUT, " GrEAT 

IS Diana of the Ephesians ! " — Acts xix. 34. 

This was under the auspices of the heathen god- 
dess. With the progress of Christianity, the art of 
riot has become more refined. The spread of the 
Gospel has made plebeian uproars less frequent, but 
worse. The invention of printing, by extending in- 
telligence, made the people less liable to tumultuous 
outbreaks, but supplied a means by which their pas- 
sions could be appealed to with art and effect. The 
most fatal mobs, therefore, have taken place in recent 
times and in improved communities. When you 
add to popular fury the determination of intelligence, 
and direct this with the sagacity of those who are 
artists in dissension, you have something which hea- 
then times could not produce, a Christian mob. And 
the recent specimen we have had of this, though so 
boyish as to be worthy only of ridicule, was yet so 
gross in its injuries, — being insulting without being 
terrible, — and has brought such discredit on us, that 
it is worthy of being seriously treated. And I pro- 
pose, in my office of teacher of duty and censor of 
morals, to which I was ordained in this place, some- 
thing more than three years since, to attempt to con- 
tribute a very little towards setting it in its true 
light. 

It is a little remarkable, that all the mobs of which 
we read in the New Testament, and of which Christ 
and his messengers were the objects, were, unless you 



17 

reckon the occasions on which the Jews were en- 
raged to tumult by Christ's claims of Messianic dig- 
nity, all produced by the two causes of irritation 
which produced the disquiet here, jealousy of for- 
eigners, and apprehension of damage from a sug- 
gested reform in the national institutions. 

Thus, when Jesus went into the synagogue at 
Nazareth, which was his own native city, the riot, 
and attempt to throw him from the precipice on 
which the city stood, did not arise from his reading 
the prophecy concerning preaching the Gospel to the 
poor and deliverance to the captives, and afterward 
declaring that that day the prophecy was fulfilled in 
their ears, inasmuch as he was preaching the Gospel 
to them. They were charmed by his gracious dis- 
course. But when by allusion to Naaman, the Syrian, 
and the widow at Sarepta, he insinuated, and more 
than insinuated, that the blessings of Heaven might 
also, in later times, descend more copiously on Gen- 
tiles than on them, as history has proved was indeed 
the fact, their jealousy of foreigners, and what they 
considered an insult to their national pride, made 
them so outrageous, that the person of their teacher 
was only saved by an apparent miracle. 

But in the case before us of Paul at Ephesus, the 
first excitement arose from a suggestion of a reform 
in national institutions ; not, however, in the way of 
invasion from abroad, but of persuading the people 
themselves of a better way. Paul preached to peo- 
ple of his own nation, and to Greeks who had in- 
vited him, in the synagogue of the Hebrews, and in 
the school-house of one Tyrannus, the faith of Christ. 

2* 



18 

And so soon as that faith was received with favor 
and produced an effect, the adherents of the ancient 
system raised a tumult, and called the people to- 
gether with some appearance of a deliberative assem- 
bly, — confused, however, and objectless; and they 
maintained some appearance of decency, until one 
Alexander was put forward among them ; and when 
they learned that he was a Jew, a foreigner, they fell 
to roaring, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians I " and 
this for the space of some two hours ; and it required 
all the wisdom of a very sensible and calm counsel- 
lor to quiet them. But you have seen that we have 
greatly improved on this example, and that our tu- 
mults do not end with vociferation. And it is prob- 
able that theirs would not have so ended, if they had 
not feared to be " called to account " for that day's 
business. But we have no Romans of whom our 
people are to be afraid ; and having liberty, we know 
not better than to convert it into license. If Deme- 
trius had a cause of complaint against the man, the 
law was open, and there were deputies, an abundance 
of lawyers to undertake the cause. Why did he not 
bring an action ? The fame of the city was known. 
The institutions were, as the fact proved, safe. The 
men were neither robbers of churches, nor blasphem- 
ers of their religion. They preached, indeed, what 
they thought was reform in Faith ; but they did not 
compel any to hear, and they did it privately and 
decently. The tumult, therefore, was absurd and 
mischievous ; but not half so absurd and mischievous 
as that which we have gone through. Let it not be 
said or imagined that I have compared our recent 



19 

visitors with the Apostles. Far from it. But they 
are probably the only characters in the affair which 
are not well represented in the scene at Ephesus. 
There was one, and probably more than one, among 
us, who, with the good sense of the town clerk of 
Ephesus, and with all his urbanity, with the knowl- 
edge of law, and the dignity of years, resisted this, 
as he would resist any tumult, for love of the town 
which is dear to him, and of which he is one of the 
brightest ornaments. And I venture to say that all 
who love the Church were on one side in this ques- 
tion, and that those who, under pretence of danger to 
the Church, raised the excitement, are not the men 
who, by their piety, have the right to take the Church 
under their protection ; and that those men who, un- 
der pretence of love of country, helped in it, are not 
the men of whom the country would be proud. 

First, we strictly deduce from the text, that the 
fact that a popular riot is excited or threatened is no 
evidence that the man or cause against which it is 
excited is in the slightest degi*ee unjust or blama- 
ble. For the elements of which a mob is composed 
are so irrational, and the contagion of a common 
passion so easily passes from breast to breast, — and 
the greater part often know not wherefore they are 
come together, — and the whole proceedings are in 
general so brutish and violent, that it is not to be 
regarded as an expression of opinion even on the 
part of those who compose it, but is a mad and blind 
affair, in which the last appeal is made from reason 
to passion, from the calm judgments of men to their 
ignorant prejudices, from the enlightened and the 



20 

conscientious to the blindest and most abandoned 
class. A niob, therefore, has nothing of the dignity 
of an expression of opinion ; for it very often has no 
opinions ; and if it have any, they are as discordant 
as the noises and shouts they make. And it has not 
the effect of an expression of the people ; for we know 
that a few artful and designing men in the dark, by 
using all the bad materials they can collect from the 
purlieus of a large town, can make the show of a 
great multitude in behalf of a cause which every 
man who dares exhibit himself disdains. 

Law is, indeed, an imperfect protection ; for we 
know that injustice is sometimes perpetrated under 
its forms. But it is a great shelter ; and more than all 
among us, where government, especially local govern- 
ment, is weak, and in unusual emergencies cannot 
be relied on to protect us, it is of the utmost impor- 
tance that public opinion should be so schooled and 
trained in justice, as to require that all who will invade 
other men's privileges, and abridge their rights, attack 
their persons, and endanger their liberty, should do 
it by the processes of law ; and that when the weak 
are made an object of attack and violent outrage, the 
whole community should feel itself insulted, and the 
more so in proportion to the defencelessness of the 
sufferers. 

In this quiet and hitherto somewhat respectable 
part of the country, where the thrift and active in- 
telligence of a large town is still combined with re- 
mains of village simplicity, and interspersed with 
something of the amenities of rural life, we are hap- 
pily ignorant of what a thoroughly excited mob is. 



21 

But when at last, and appearances indicate that it 
will not be long, such a thing is seen, you will learn 
a most surprising and startling lesson. Quiet peo- 
ple will see forces and terrors aroused, of which they 
never dreamed as inhabiting the breasts of men, and 
this town will have read quite a new chapter in the 
history of humanity. It is a thing wholly unlike any 
other form of human life, unless it be battle, of which 
it has the ferocity without the method. A mob is 
like a wild animal broken from its lair, and is hardly 
more guided by any principle of reason. The con- 
tagion of blind feelings, and the very peculiar excita- 
bility of an acting multitude, and the bad passions 
that take that opportunity to vent themselves, and 
the malice which then has free play, and, hardly less, 
the mistaken enthusiasm which imagines something 
which is not there, and does the more mischief for its 
honesty, all swelled by idleness and dissipation, com- 
bine to make of a multitude of men a things under 
the guidance of no soul, having even no intelligent 
instincts, monstrous in its form, and ferocious in its 
purposes, a wild and awful force, before which au- 
thority and right fall and are trampled in the dust. 
To enjoy this spectacle in its full sublimity, you need 
a large, ignorant pauper populace ; and for want 
of this we have been hitherto free from such out- 
breaks as have shaken Liverpool, and London, and 
Philadelphia. But our population is rapidly increas- 
ing, and since it increases from foreign sources, 
a part of the increase will be of the uninstructed. 
We shall acquire more and more the character and 
habits of a city ; and then the science, of which the 



22 

people are now learning the rudiments, will be fully 
mastered. Our corporate character is as distinct a 
thing as the character of an individual. We are now 
training and forming it, fixing those habits which 
are to characterize our community fifty years to come, 
fastening on the town those civic vices and virtues 
under which our children and successors will thrive 
or suffer. The character of the town when it be- 
comes a multitudinous city will be, in a measure, 
what we make it now. The time will come when 
there will not want materials for a mob of the most 
destructive character. And even now, by consider- 
able fostering, by those means and appliances which 
demagogues and bad men know how to use, it is not 
impossible to excite such a riot, as, if it do not en- 
danger life, threatens property ; and, when it cannot 
terrify the town, is content with disgracing it. Let 
them go on, it is a good beginning. Let them study 
this noble, this beneficent art. Let them go to our 
great cities, and dive into the dark alleys, and consult 
with mob-captains on the noble art of rioting. Let 
them have at their command all the unearthly noises 
to drown the voice of reason, and learn in every place 
from the most skilful incendiaries how they can most 
effectively calumniate, and spread abroad in the dark 
the words which exasperate. They will earn a great 
reward from their country. The town should turn 
out to do them honor. It should light up their re- 
turn with tar-barrels, and commit to their hands the 
guardianship of the public safety. They must come 
back with fresh enjoyment to the reading of the 
Scriptures, and will find instruction for them in the 
very text which is now before us. 



23 

In those vulgar disorders which we have seen, 
there is this farther to be lamented, that our young 
men, attracted at first by mere curiosity, take part in 
them, and there learn the first lessons of plebeian 
indecency. All who reflect on the important part 
which the social order has in training the young 
mind in all the virtues, wall know how to regret the 
circumstance, when he sees our sons joining in these 
humiliating exhibitions, drinking vulgarity and law- 
lessness from one fountain, and coming no sooner 
into the enjoyment of their liberty than they learn to 
abuse it. We shall not have ourselves to praise, if 
they do not grow up with habits corresponding to the 
beginning, — if they do not in time insult their own 
fathers, and learn with rapidity all the vices, to which 
the chief barriers are thrown down when they have 
lost the modesty and subordination which belong to 
their age. 

It is a plain proposition, that every one of us has a 
right to hear whom he pleases, — under guidance of 
his conscience and responsible to God, — and that 
any number of our citizens can claim to assemble 
and be allowed to discuss any questions of public 
interest without molestation. And any one who by 
riotous proceedings interferes with these rights is a 
traitor to the people, and a public enemy. Such 
conduct is always a great civil offence, and its enor- 
mity is increased when the cause of those who are 
assailed is just. 

In any case such proceedings are criminal and 
alarming; but how peculiarly so, when, as here, the 
cause was one, certainly of conscience, and, I am 



24 

inclined to think, of philanthropy, and the men wor- 
thy of respect. After these insults offered to a stran- 
ger, a seeming gentleman, a reputed Christian, every 
one of us enjoys his liberty of speech only by suffer- 
ance, and is liable, whenever he shall become ob- 
noxious to the populace, to be mobbed and hooted 
through the streets, and his house attacked. 

There are moderate men, whose opinions are wor- 
thy of all consideration, who think that harm would 
come of the discussions proposed to be held, that the 
addresses of the gentlemen would have a tendency 
to produce insubordination to the laws and disre- 
spect for the government. But even suppose it were 
so, would you vindicate the honor of the laws by 
yourself violating them ? Would you add fuel to 
the popular fire on account of your problematical 
fear, and deny men their commonest rights, to stifle 
a few arguments ? Two ways were open, either to 
meet what was said and refute it, or neglect it alto- 
gether. There was no third. In denying those 
strangers their right, we, the citizens of Springfield, 
need not think that they were the chief sufferers ; we 
ourselves have a hundredfold more to bear than they. 
We have gone down a step in character, and all our 
rights are compromised in theirs. Public order is 
the interest of the town, not of the stranger ; and free- 
dom of speech is that great right of the people, which 
cannot in any place be abridged without the liberties 
of all being thereby endangered. Many feel, and all 
ought to feel, not only ashamed, but insulted, by the 
late proceedings. All should feel deeply mortified at 
the weakness of our government, and interest them- 



25 

selves to make it stronger and more resolute. We 
ought to have extinguished the flame before it rose. 
There is little question that it might then have easily- 
been done. Those who have influence, when they 
saw what was about to happen, ought to have called 
their friends together and said, " This must not he " ; 
they ought to have gone to the selectmen and offered 
them their service ; they ought to have suppressed 
the note of alarm, discovered, if possible, the secret 
workers of trouble, and arrested their proceedings. 
They oifght to have said to one another, " Every 
thing depends on right being now vindicated ; we 
will maintain the law ; we are attached to free speech 
and are determined to defend it, as well when other 
men speak their minds, as when we speak our own." 
That would have been the way of faithful public 
spirit ; and we might so have saved our character. 

But what a sad, what a pitiful spectacle it was ! 
What a mixture of the vulgar, the nonsensical, and 
the profane I To begin with those burlesque figures 
with which some hopeful citizens saw fit to dese- 
crate* the Sabbath, to the scandal of the gathering 
congregations, that they might insult a stranger, and 
make Springfield a laughing-stock. For the rope 
that suspended them was round the neck of all of 
us, and we are still dangling in ridicule before the 
whole country. Next, to proceed, with open libel and 
anonymous calumny, to assail the reputation of one 
who at least was not a felon, and to gather together 
a rabble of boys and men to load the air with the 



* In delivery this was ornament. 

3 



26 

smoke and stench of their vulgar illumination, and 
thus, forsooth, honor the cause of government, and 
vindicate the country against an alien! Are these 
the things which honor our community ? And is 
this the way in which our better principles are to be 
maintained against those who, we imagine, wish to 
invade them ? 

I suppose from the nature of these things, and 
from their open advocates, that they are to be con- 
sidered an example of that attachment to law and 
order which we recently heard so much Vaunted. 
Would that those pretences had been true I Would 
that those who profess such attachment to law were 
attached to it in some other instances than those in 
which it is oppressive I Would that they could love 
law in those numerous cases in which it is combined 
with justice, as well as in an unhappy provision in 
which it is opposed to it ! But no, there are some 
of our citizens who are zealous for the law only when 
the law is wrong ; and are only then excited to en- 
thusiasm, when, by happy accident, they can, by 
obeying the magistrate, violate conscience. All their 
souls are fired in behalf of a statute to which hu- 
manity is sacrificed. When only justice is to be 
maintained, and mere right to be vindicated, and men 
to be protected in their legal and just privileges, their 
zeal for law and order subsides, and lies very low. 

It is my duty to remind you that the guilt of a 
riot lies chiefly on those who intentionally instigate 
it. For half-bred and half-educated men and boys 
will often join in mobs from mere idleness, or curi- 
osity, or misapprehension ; but the intelligent man 



27 

who uses these materials as his tools employs men's 
brutish passions to overawe reason and truth, — he is 
the traitor and the greater culprit. Said Jesus to that 
wretched tool, Pontius Pilate, " Thou couldst have 
no power at all against me except it were given thee 
from above ; therefore, he that delivered me unto 
thee hath the greater sin." 

I put to the whole town these questions : — 

Whether a man's reputation is less his own, or we 
less culpable for injuriously assailing it, because he 
was born in England, and we bound to him by the 
duties of hospitality ? 

Whether it has generally been found more service- 
able to truth to stifle discussion, or to let it have free 
course ? 

Whether any one of us would have suffered such 
treatment in any town of England in consequence 
of any exercise of his free speech, and whether, if the 
populace had so annoyed him, he would not have 
found prompt protection from the public authorities ? 

I am myself, as a citizen of Springfield and pastor 
of one of her churches, inexpressibly mortified and 
ashamed at our people's unwashed, dissolute be- 
havior ; and I consider my own rights to have been 
seriously invaded ; and there are very many — I trust 
all of you — think with me. 

A mob, my friends, may always be considered as 
lying dormant in the hiding-places of a large town's 
depravity. It is sometimes a dangerous, many-head- 
ed monster, and sometimes only a venomous reptile. 
When it next creeps forth upon us, and stimulated 
by its natural food, libel and liquor, displays itself 



28 

in our streets in open riot, I trust it will be scourged 
back to its holes with the threefold lash of truth, jus- 
tice, and the penal law. 

It remains to be seen, whether a dozen mistaken 
and violent men are to hazard the peace, and defy 
the rights of every one of us. 

We read that, on an awful occasion, the Saviour 
of the world was brought and exhibited to the people 
bleeding from the scourge. That which was guilt 
and horror then might be justice and leniency now, 
if the scourge were only the scourge of public repro- 
bation. 

If good counsels could prevail, I would have all 
who took lead in these transactions brought up, with 
constables staves in their hands, and ranged side by 
side upon the platform of that hall, and all the peo- 
ple admitted to look at them, and identify them. 
And in large letters on a scroll over their heads I 
would have this inscription : — George Washington 

DESERVED WELL OF THE NATION ; BUT THESE MEN 
HAVE SERVED THEIR COUNTRY ACCORDING TO THEIR 

CONSCIENCES. And as the sword is made to figure in 
statues of noble men, I would have all their various 
weapons and implements, their filthy missiles, their 
tar, and their feathers, and their characteristic mate- 
rials, laid in open sight on the platform with them. 
That moral pillory should be their punishment. 

If the citizens would be guided by my advice, they 
would let any man who visited us enjoy all his legal 
rights, and regard any one who molested him in 
them as their own enemy, and make him feel in its 
utmost extent the rigor of the law. They would 



29 

feel in the abridgment of others' rights themselves 
attacked, and the public safety seriously endangered. 
They would appoint an officer to attend meetings 
which it was apprehended would be indecent, cor- 
rupting to the public morals, or blasphemous towards 
religion and the Church, and cause instant prosecution 
to be made for the offence. They would appoint 
a committee to attend where it was supposed the 
character of citizens would be attacked, and cause 
the offender to be prosecuted for detraction and slan- 
der. Thus every stranger should feel, not only the 
just protection, but the just restraints, of the law ; he 
should see the shield and the sword of the law both 
at his side ; and they should be instruments sacred 
as an altar, and impartial as E-hadamanthus. But 
we shall have nothing more to boast of our country, 
when we forget justice and abuse liberty. 

It has been attempted to palliate the business by 
comparing it to other riots which some consider half 
defensible. The mob at Boston was a violent over- 
riding of the law ; and executive officers ought to be 
armed with such force as entirely to preclude its rep- 
etition. But that was made by ignorant blacks, 
whom the (national) Constitution, (as it is adminis- 
tered, practically) disfranchises, and who consequent- 
ly were not bound by the peculiar obligations of 
citizenship (to the extent that we are) ; ours was by 
men enjoying unimpaired all the privileges of citi- 
zens. The object of that was to restore a man to 
his natural rights ; the object of this was to invade 
rights, and deprive a man of privileges which all the 
laws secure. That was to secure liberty, and this 



30 

was to destroy it. The spirit of that was generosity, 
the spirit of this was malice. That was at least 
courageous and by open day, this was cowardly and 
skulked into the darkness of the night. 

A still more flagitious attempt is made to con- 
found this with that reluctant and peaceable refusal 
to obey the law, which some have thought might in 
certain circumstances be their duty. But, whatever 
men may pretend, they know full well that the two 
things cannot be confounded. One who shall see no 
difference between the refusal of Daniel to fall down 
before Nebuchadnezzar's image, the refusal of the 
Apostles to obey the senate of the Jews, the refusal 
of an American to help in binding a slave, or to help 
in starving him, — between this and the proceedings 
with which we have been favored this week, — is in- 
capable of discerning the rules of human conduct. 

If a strong man had in open day taken the stranger 
by the collar in the street, and told him that, if he 
opened his mouth in town, he would cudgel him, it 
would have been a ruffian outrage, but would have 
had the merit of honesty and boldness. But to 
league together in numbers, and do that impersonally 
and in the dark which will not bear the day, is not 
an example of the civic virtues which in any time 
would have adorned and saved the state. 

It is highly probable, that, when the generation of 
night-disturbers is in its grave, a generation of day- 
light ruffians will come, and that in party times — to 
say nothing of the tender sex — even a man will have 
to walk the streets with caution. It may be that self- 
styled committees of vigilance will be appointed to 



31 

interrogate and regulate us. But I trust that then, 
should, by some singular change in the public spirit, 
all other places fall under the interdict of our guar- 
dians, truth and freedom will find refuge in the 
Christian pulpit. I trust it will be long ere men will 
lay their insolent hands on that, and attempt to en- 
slave that which our religion has made free. And 
when the people address the ministry, which is their 
handmaid in virtue, and, dreaming that she is a cap- 
tive, say to her, " Sing us one of the pleasant songs 
of Zion," I hope the reply will be, " Nay, I will de- 
clare the truth of the Lord, which shall be sweeter 
than songs in the ears of the righteous." 



THE END. 



iw^ESS*' 



^..g 



I 



^f.^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 079 586 




